This invention relates in general to ladder safety devices and deals more particularly with an improved device for indicating whether a straight ladder is positioned at a safe angle of inclination when the ladder is leaning against a building or other supporting structure. Accidents involving straight ladders often result in serious injury. Such accidents can often be attributed to improper ladder positioning. Safety authorities generally agree that the ideal angle of inclination for a straight ladder is about 70 degrees to the horizontal with a plus or minus tolerance of about 5 degrees. However, uneven ground conditions are often encountered which make it difficult to attain ideal positioning without the use of some type of ladder leveling device not usually readily available to the average home owner or other occasional ladder user. Consequently, the ladder user may attempt to compensate for a difficult terrain condition, and in so doing, may unknowingly position the ladder at an unsafe angle of inclination, thereby setting the stage for a potentially serious accident.
Heretofore ladder inclination devices have been provided to aid the occasional ladder user in properly positioning a ladder at a safe angle of inclination. Typical examples of such devices are found in the following U.S. Pat. No.
______________________________________ 2,845,719 Thomiszer 3,118,234 Wilson 4,554,994 Weiner ______________________________________
It appears that those devices heretofore available have not gained widespread acceptance, which may be attributed in the cost of producing such a device or the difficulty encountered in affixing the device to an associated ladder.
Accordingly, it is the general aim of the present invention to provide an improved ladder inclination device for low cost production and which may be readily affixed to an associated ladder without the use of tools.